For Love of Treason
Happy Independence Day, the greatest day of the year— at least excluding religious holidays.
The hot takes
After 24 hours to let the Supreme Court's partial ban on affirmative action sink in, the twin responses I'm seeing from the left are:
(1) Anyone can see that Justice Thomas couldn't have gotten where he is without affirmative action to prop him up--I mean, just look at his skin--and
(2) Legacy admissions seem pretty unfair, so what's the big deal with institutionalizing racism in admissions too?I'd have more respect for Harvard et al. if they got rid of legacy admissions, too, but few of us will be supporting a general "no unfairness" Constitutional amendment, so it seems unlikely the Supreme Court will be asked to take care of that particular bit of dirty business for us. Those of us who object to legacy admission might consider not donating to universities that practice them. We could even pass federal legislation denying tax subsidies to universities that don't get it right. We don't have to embrace racism in order to get rid of legacy admissions.
A Busy Month
Between now and a month from now I will be finishing up the Technical Rescue certification series I've been pursuing since April. This will put me in night classes on Mondays and Wednesdays every week, and on two of the four weeks also on Fridays, as well as all day Saturdays and Sundays. This is of course in addition to my regular professional and family duties.
If it's been a little quiet lately, it's because I'm busy. It's worthwhile stuff, however, that I think is not a waste of time. Still, it may be August before I can relax.
Number 21 with a bullet
Some slight coverage of the Biden family corruption is making its way into mainstream news.
Jesus as Capricorn
I don't actually know anything about astrology, aside from the fact that I'm aware that the various 'signs' are supposed to align with dates, and my own supposed sign is ridiculously out of line with any facts about my character. Apparently the Capricorn dates line up with the Christmas holiday, though, so I guess you have to give old Kris the point as a matter of theology.
All the same, the song reminds me of this bit by Johnny Paycheck in certain ways.
Is he wrong about any of that? Well, no; and yet, also, yes. Johnny Paycheck was much in need of grace. He once shot a man in the head because he was high on cocaine. Of course that's just the kind of person you ought to admit to the church if he's willing to come, exactly as he says. But it's also true that he's falling easily in on his grievances, rather than thinking on the mote -- or log -- in his own eye.
You Bet Your Life
More Marxism:
And more Foil Arms and Hog. No, really, it's good guidance on giving an acceptance speech in today's world.
No Idea
I have no idea what's going on in Russia, so here's Foil Arms and Hog:
And your nightly dose of Marxism:
Cone of Silence
Dad29 asks about the weird 'cone of silence' surrounding the Biden administration's obvious corruption.
Biden bragging about threatening the Ukrainians never raised any alarms in Washington, because it was the new normal. Hunter getting a no-show job at a foreign company raised no eyebrows because everyone was doing it....Umnnnhhhh, yes. Yes, indeed!Where is "Clean Jeans" Paul Ryan? Bill Barr, the self-proclaimed 'ultra-Catholic'? We know McConnell can't possibly come out of his Red Chinese-owned shell on this, but what about Tester? Tuberville? Hawley?
I'd like to add something else to that: Ukraine was the proximate cause of Trump's first impeachment. At that time we learned that the one thing the Congressional leadership would not tolerate was poking around with Ukraine and corruption.
This was all before the Russian war, but at the time there were claims that Pelosi and Romney also had family members working with Ukraine's gas and oil industry. Fact check organizations attempted to say this was dubious, although at least one of the claims remains unprovable either way:
Pelosi did visit Ukraine in 2017 — as another video shows — in which he said in an interview he was visiting on behalf of an organization he was running called the Corporate Governance Initiative (he served as executive director). Hammill told us the visit was “a vacation at personal expense.” It’s unclear if the Corporate Governance Initiative — a company registered in Arizona with a stated purpose of helping organizations develop structures and policies — is still active. Attempts to contact it were unsuccessful.
Russia's war has only increased the opportunity for corruption, as vast sums of money -- we really have no idea how much, as the Pentagon has admitted it is billions of dollars off in its estimate and the intelligence budgets are black -- have flowed to various programs, classified and otherwise.
The odds that members of Congress have had the opportunity to arrange kickbacks or other payoffs to themselves, friends, or family are close to 100%. The odds that our Congress' members are above taking advantage of such opportunities? Eh, somewhat less than 100%.
Another reason next year's elections cannot be lost by the establishment is that it might open up the opportunity to look under the hood. They dodged the bullet last time, but only through an unwinnable impeachment coupled with a trial designed to make it look like treason to try to pressure Ukraine to get answers about it.
Cracking more culinary codes
This is my year for finding out how to make things at home that are hard to find in restaurants out here in the boonies. We have a Vietnamese restaurant that makes a wonderful pho, but it's not open on the days I'm most likely to be in town. So I acquired a pho cookbook, followed the directions, and produced a fantastic stock. This one was redfish stock, made from the frames that our fisherman neighbor discards after filleting, but the same technique would work on chicken stock: just simmer it for a while with a chunk of ginger cut in half, a cinnamon stock, some anise pods, some coriander seeds, and some fennel seeds, plus a bit of salt and sugar.The cookbook advised cooking the shrimp and the rice noodles separately in plain water, but I was disappointed in the results: too flat. With the other half of the fish stock today, I cooked scallops and a new brand of rice noodles right in the stock, then towards the end added the bean sprouts, a cross-cut Thai pepper (bushels of them coming from the garden now), and sliced mushrooms. Squeeze in a copy of lime wedges, add some cilantro and Thai basil if you've got it, and you're done.Soon I'll try again, with chicken stock. My limited little local grocery store charmed me to my toes by stocking chicken feet this week. Chicken feet make great stock.
Laws Are For The Little People.
The Hunter Biden plea deal proves that in our two-tiered justice system, only the connected are protected.
The Study of Beauty
These give me hope; in spite of the ugliness of contemporary music and society, at least a few of the young study to keep the secret fire alive.
An Important Day
Today marks both the 21st birthday of my only son, and also my 24th wedding anniversary.
I spoke to my son this morning and congratulated him on making it to legal adulthood. "It only gets harder from here," I warned.
"Oh, I know," he said, which was the worst possible thing to say. Thank God he does not know how much harder it gets.
Unfortunately all the planned festivities are offline because my truck decided to break down last night -- initially it looks like more computer troubles, the bane of my existence because I can easily repair simple mechanical problems -- and it is going to pour rain for days here in western North Carolina. Nobody's much inclined to ride motorcycles in a downpour for hours.
It's a big day anyway.
UPDATE: Relatively good news about the truck. In spite of showing all the signs of a computer issue, it was a mechanical failure after all. Got it back running this afternoon.
A Pleasant Day in Western North Carolina
Yesterday my wife and I rode out to Franklin, where the annual Scottish festival was underway. Ethnic festivals are always interesting in terms of what they have to say about the story the group likes to tell about itself and the kind of people they are. Scottish heritage festivals invariably feature Highland strength sports -- I believe the sheaf toss is underway in the background of this photo.
In addition, there was free axe throwing, and Atlas stone lifting. Stone lifting is one of the ancient strength sports of Scotland, which is also a major sport even today in Iceland. These are with natural stones, however. The Atlas stone is a spherical 'stone' made of concrete, which is quite hard to lift because it wants to roll out of your arms. It is a regular feature of Strongman competitions. There were about six of us there who were both Strongman competitors and also regulars at Scottish Highland Games, and we had fun lifting the big 250 pound stone. (My inner arms are quite abraded this morning, a feature that is called 'stone kisses' in the games.)
Then my wife and I rode up through the Cullasaja Gorge, and through various mountain back roads.
Cullasaja Falls
We went to both the city of Highlands and the unincorporated town of Cashiers. There we stopped for dinner at the Whiteside Brewing Company in order to attend a concert I'd heard about. This was by The Maggie Valley Band, which is built around a pair of sisters. They sing Americana with a psychedelic twinge. Their stuff is available on YouTube and Spotify, though I have to admit that the polished stuff there doesn't sound as good to me. Live, they have a very nice sound that is reminiscent of Mazzy Star.
They know their stuff, too. They covered standards like Jolene and The Long Black Veil, as well as their own work. Every time they'd start a song I'd be wrong about which one they were going to do, because they were adept enough to adapt standard songs to other melodies or meters, giving a pleasant element of surprise to the listening audience. I'd still know the song, if it was one of the covers, but it'd be set to a tune I expected to be a different song.
Overall, a nice day for riding.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)